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Ok .. so my new 1.5ghz PowerBook came in today and what can i say? It's awesome.. but heres a couple of questions since im new to the Mac world.

1. Ive already calibrated my battery and everything, but should i always leave it plugged in whenever it's just sitting on my desk, even if the light is green?

2. At night, should i shut it down or just sleep it?

3. not a battery issue, but ive seen on apples website that by pushing the F8 F9 and F10 buttons that it does stuff with the windows... the only F button for me that works is F11 which clears everything away. Whenever i push the other F buttons a little half sun looking thing comes upwith little bars underneath that fill up as i hit the F button again.. how can i get the expose' buttons working?

Open System Preferences and click Exposť.
To use a corner of the screen, click one.
To change the keyboard shortcut, choose one from the pop-up menu. If you want to use the Command, Option, or Control key with the shortcut key, hold it down and choose the key from the menu.

1. It really doesn't matter whether or not you leave it plugged in. because you won't be able to overcharge your battery. no harm can come of it, if anything; not plugging in your PB would be detrimintal because after it runs out of battery life it will go into sleep mode and ultimately be forced to shut down. which really sucks when you have things open that haven't been saved.

2. personally i like to make it go to sleep. that way it will be faster to start up rather than having to wait for it to boot up and such.

now that you're talking about keys and stuff.....how do you use the "numeric" part of the keyboard on a laptop.....since notebooks lack a numeric side of the keyboard and instead they use some of the same letter keys , but how do you turn it on?...i've never been able to do that (but again, i haven't had much experience with laptops before)

someone understands my question??

but i'm not talking about the numbers that share the same key with the signs (4/$, 5/%, 6/^....etc..) NOT THESE, i'm talking the NUMERIC side..... if you notice laptops have this part, but they share it with a few letters (L, K, J etc...i don't really recall them right now)

You use the numeric "keypad" by turning on "Num lock". You do this by holding the "fn" (function) button and pressing the corresponding Num lock key. On my 12" Powerbook this is the F6 button, on yours it may be different.

1. Definitely keep it plugged if it's on your desk. If the ring is green, it's not charging at all (hence, it won't over-charge.)

LiIon batteries have a limit of about 500 "cycles" (drain-recharge) before they lose their ability to hold a charge. Don't worry about this too much (it's inevitable, anyway...it happens to every laptop sooner or later) but why run it from the battery if there's a power outlet handy?

2. Your call. PowerBooks use very little power when sleeping; basically, just enough to "remember" their previous state. Because of this, "waking up" is much faster than starting up. There's also some debate as to whether starting up frequently puts more wear on the mechanical components of the hard disk... :rolleyes: